Stacey, You Plonker!

You gotta feel a bit for Stacey Solomon. One minute she's the UK's sweetheart, can't put a foot wrong, fronting every tv show and ad campaign going and the next she's Public Enemy Number 1 for having a sneaky fag outside a tv studio. The minute nicotine buzz she got from that illicit fag was, I doubt, worth the millions of pounds she lost in about 24 hours after the photos were made public.

Yesterday she was dropped from her high-proﬁle and no doubt intensely lucrative endorsement deal with Iceland too. (although they may have done her unborn child a favour as prior to her sacking, it may well have been subjected not just to a lack of oxygen from the fags, but potentially, also a diet of cheap, yellow foodstuff entirely lacking in any sort of nutrients.)

I'm actually impressed that the companies that were working with her have reacted as strongly as they have. Being a celebrity like Solomon is to lead a charmed life with no money or employment woes and plenty of freebies: I think it was Liam Gallagher that once noted that the more famous he became, the harder it was to spend his money since every one wanted to give him their wares for free...BUT! and it's a huge "BUT", there IS a price to pay and that is that you must be a half decent role model (certainly this is true of TV reality show talent such as Solomon: it would seem that rock stars and models get to march to the beat of their own drum and a good "bad behaviour" story has the opposite effect and actually increases their proﬁle and revenue, see Kate Moss for details. Never could fathom those contradictions...)

So this is where I stand on the smoking while pregnant issue: It's never OK to smoke when you're pregnant, it starves your baby of oxygen and vital nutrients and babies of smokers have lower birth weights. Only today, statistics have been released that show that the Scottish smoking ban is having a directly positive effect on children being born in Scotland.

Carrying a child is a great privilege and sometimes, really hard work, ﬁlled with sacriﬁces: your unborn child is at the mercy of your willpower, be it good or bad. You have a defenceless human being to consider. Smoking while pregnant is irresponsible, selﬁsh and utterly reprehensible and I don't give a ﬁg how much you are a slave to your addiction: Just Say No. You may think I sound pious, but I make no apology; this is how I feel.

Stacey Solomon is a true every woman: she's someone we can all identify with: a normal girl, with a great reality show back story who got the fairy tale showbiz happy ending. Or so she thought. I think that her punishment has been harsh but not unduly so. It was ridiculously naive of her to think that she would not be discovered: after all, her little indiscretion took place outside a tv studio where there are always paps lurking: Stacey you Plonker. I would suggest that she must have been absolutely desperate to light up to take a risk like that instead of waiting until she was in the privacy of her home, away from prying paparazzi lenses.

Of course, the ﬁrst thing to go when the story broke was (rightly so) her "Mum Of The Year" title, one which now includes as possible replacements: Jordan, Natalie Cassidy and Natasha Giggs. Or in other words, a washed up glamour model, a self-confessed victim of mental abuse at the hands of her baby daddy and a home wrecker with a predilection for keeping it in the family...

Blimey! If that's the best we can do in the world of celebrity parenting then I'm fearing for our Nation's offspring. That list looks suspiciously like it was compiled in a rushed meeting that merely involved leaﬁng through a tabloid and sticking a pin in any random pregnant, or recently sprogged up red top favourite regardless of actual parenting ability. Come on Foxy Bingo, you can do better than that: why not take a leaf out of Tesco's book whose Mum Of The Year was the inﬁnitely more sensible choice of Gabby Logan.

So yes, I do feel a bit for Stacey Solomon but I also hope that being made such a public example of will at least have made some other pregnant mums to be who are still smoking, think twice about lighting up their next fag. That can only be a good thing.